you don't take before bedtime. take it in bed only when you need it and have at least four hours left for sleep. do not take intermezzo if you have had an allergic reaction to drugs containing zolpidem, such as ambien. allergic reactions such as shortness of breath or swelling of your tongue or throat may occur and may be fatal. intermezzo should not be taken if you have taken another sleep medicine at bedtime or in the middle of the night or drank alcohol that day. do not drive or operate machinery until at least 4 hours after taking intermezzo and you're fully awake. driving, eating, or engaging in other activities while not fully awake without remembering the event the next day have been reported. abnormal behaviors may include aggressiveness, agitation, hallucinations, or confusion. alcohol or taking other medicines that make you sleepy may increase these risks. in depressed patients, worsening of depression, including risk of suicide, may occur. intermezzo, like most sleep medicines, has some risk of dependency. common side effects are headache, nausea, and fatigue.

so if you suffer from middle-of-the-night insomnia, ask your doctor about intermezzo and return to sleep again. ♪ a new ride comes along and changes everything. the powerful gs. get great values on your favorite lexus models during the command performance sales event. this is the pursuit of perfection. welcome back. at the top of the show we asked why you were awake and we have

your answers. >> it's on twitter, you definitely handle sports like a champ action don't listen to bill karins. >> bill karins as big hater when it comes to me doing this show. i think it's in jest but i'm beginning to get a complex about this. >> complex about this. >> todd says i'm up way too early. i just watched magic mike and expected to hate it but i didn't. never judge. >> i have never seen it. an endorsement who have not seen it yet, should rent it. don't go anywhere. "morning joe" starts right now. . good morning. it's monday, march 18th. bus on set here on "morning joe," msnbc and "time" magazine senior political analyst mark halpern. >> hi, mika. >> you like my cryptic tweets? >> i do. >> i didn't know they were cryptic. new york magazine and msnbc

political analyst, jon heilman is back. former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst steve ratner. in washington editorial director of the national journal group, ron fornia. >> we are halpern, heilman every sunday night late to get ready for the show and we go to the hippest place there and where is that? >> i don't know. i've never been there. >> we go to brooklyn. >> there is a quizino's there. >> we don't want that to happen, we don't want people like me to go to these places but we do. we go last night, right? >> yeah. >> what is wrong with my sweater? >> i'm sorry. it's just -- >> i'd make him take the sweater

off first. >> a little too connecticut? >> a little too connecticut. >> so we go in. last night, we are in there and usually we are watching wrestling or something like that. >> dutch wrestling. >> right. right. >> midget wrestling. >> bring it in for a landing. >> jon says to me, wait, wait, wait! doing the whole thing on the bible. we ask the bartender to switch the channel. we are sitting there drinking and doing shots and watching the history channel's "jesus." we get about three minutes in and look, look. they got barack obama on there, right? except it's not barack obama! like this history channel thing. >> what is this? >> he is also not playing jesus. >> there is satan to the left and buzz feed reported last night that satan looks a little bit too much like barack obama.

>> that's the complaint, i hope? that is the complaint. >> well, that's an incredible story. >> classic news lead. >> can i actually do a real story? >> i'm watching "way too early" with thomas roberts. i guess hbo did something with george bush's head on the spike. >> i think people have too much time on their hands. could we start with the markets? are you kidding me? >> there is george bush. >> what is going on here? alex! put that down! >> they had to apologize for that. >> do you want people to watch this show? seriously. stupid. >> that's not juiceesus, it's s. people were into that in the bar. >> i'm going to move on. >> they were the only ones like in high school cheering for the devil. >> i'm going to try to move on and save you all from yourself.

we begin with the markets. big repercussions this morning to a controversial plan by european leaders to partially fund a bailout of cyprus. today, cyprus parliament will hold an emergency vote to review the terms of a rescue package that targets individual savings accounts in exchange for billions of dollars of emergency crash and creditors impose onetime tax of 3% on all bank deposits under $130,000. >> going deep here. >> the tax could be closer to 10% on people who have over $640,000 in the bank. that's according to the "the wall street journal" this morning. people stood in long lines over the weekend to withdraw money before the policy went into effect and now russian president vladimir putin is calling the move, quote, unfair, unprofessional and dangerous. russian citizens make up the majority of billions of euros held in cypress bank.

this is important. >> cypress. >> who cares about cyprus? >> come on, cyprus. are you telling me if somebody sneezes in cyprus we get a cold than on the nasdaq? >> tell us why. >> we have a cold on the nasdaq. the nasdaq is going down today. not too many people care about cyprus but a way the europeans have screwed up the bailout by getting the people to pay a part of the cost. you could have a run on the bank and europeans say why do i have my money in this bank? might be a tax on me next. it shows that europe is still a mess, that they have a whole bunch of problems and cyprus may be tiny but affect mavbehavior. it's a case where the europeans are trying to punish a bunch of russians who have money in the

cyprus banks and it backfired on them. >> the markets can all go down because russians are angry what cyprus is doing? >> it shows that the europeans do not know what they are doing. >> they really don't know what they are doing. >> when people realize that, they lose confidence and market go down and people get scared. >> you see osborn is still in trouble and looked like his own conservatives are telling him to back off on the austerity. >> i was in london last week. >> of course, you were. >> mika goes to south of france so i should be able to go to south of london. >> what did you hear while in london? >> are you making fun of me? >> oh, no. we are not making fun of you at all. >> i learned that osborn is in a tough position. the uk is not growing and may go into a quadruple recession and the austerity he is putting in

place has caused the economy to be really slow. >> a lot of tax increases over there in europe. we look at this austerity bit. i want to talk about this for a second. >> i want to get back to the budget then. >> talk about what is happening in washington. you know, economics discussed on tv or on the internet or on twitter, it's so depressing, because people really don't know what they are talking about and they just sort of boil it down and there is this belief through the years, that tax cuts are not a tool used. of course, tax cuts are a tool used and tax increases something that traditional are against in bad times. we hear about austerity across great britain and we never hear

about the tax increases. when you talk about the fact they cut and slash spending at the same time they hike taxes, it really was a formula made to fail. >> spending cuts and tax increases both take money out of the economy and slow the economy and, yes, they create this idea of austerity. but, look. it's a balancing problem. on the one hand you need to deal with it budgets and deficits and you need to keep growth going. here is what i saw over the weekend. recession in greece which is a actually a depression if you line it up against the u.s. great depression in 1929 it looks a lot a like in terms of how much unemployment there send a how much the economy was contracted. greece is having our great depression of the late 1920s. >> wow. moving on to washington now. president obama's renewed push for a grand bargain may be showing some early signs of paying off, at least with one top republican. senator bob corker of tennessee

says he could envision raising tax revenue if democrats embrace big changes to medicare and social security. he is at odds with other members of his party including house speaker john boehner who is ruling out the prospect of any new taxes. >> i think, by the way, there is a chance on a deal. i know the president is saying the right things and we have an opportunity over the next four to five months. i think republicans, if they saw true entitlement reform would be glad to look at tax reform that generates additional rveevenues. that means closing loopholes and arranging our tax system so that we have economic growth. >> i don't know whether we can come to a big agreement. if we do, it will be between the two parties on capitol hill. the president got his tax hikes on january the 1st. the talk about raising revenue is over. it's time to deal with the

spending problem. >> of course, the speaker is going to say that, but speaker has to say, as he is the leader of the republican house. this weekend confirmed what i said last week. a lot of people are saying no deal is in the works. they are moving closer together. the key point out of the john boehner interview was he was asked whether he could trust the president and his answer was, mark? absolutely. >> yes. i think it's close to true enough. >> it's close to true that he can absolutely -- >> enough trust, i think, between the parties this can happen. it's about sequencing. we all could describe the deal pretty clearly. it's how you sequence in what the so-called regular order that the speaker and others are looking for and that the white house sort of favors to some extent which is make this a congressional process and then get the senate to agree on something and then, if i may speak in indelicately, jam the house and basically say the house, this is the deal. >> ron fornia, you have been doing some great reporting on

this issue the past couple of months. >> thank you. >> where are you right now from everything you've seen up close? the white house, of course, responded strongly to your article suggesting that this was all just sort of a charm offensive. the house now is saying only certain things we can do. behind the scenes are you hearing a little bit more movement? >> yeah. i'm like mark. i'm getting a little bit optimistic that maybe both sides might have the courage and the foresight to accept up and lead. i don't believe speaker boehner when he says no more tax cuts. i think that is positioning and i think he has to do that right now. i don't believe liberal democrats they will not touch entitlements. they have to realize if they don't attack entitlements in a serious way it squeezes out the next generation. i got to hope at the end of the day that both sides use this next couple of months to care of their bases and step up and get

it done. >> we will see. >> let's move on to -- a couple of things to talk about that happened over the weekend. conservatives coming off their annual conference but still big signals the party is not on the same page going forward. republican party chair -- >> did you get like the cpac package? >> i did. >> from directv? >> i did. it was so much fun. it was fantastic. >> was it? >> yeah. >> does that only run three days or get all year-round? get 24/7 the rest of the year? >> i got the vip package so i don't know if that is different. >> you get a build up to it and all of the events. >> i have 12 packages just like that. >> i want to know if this sounds like an attempt to rebrand. >> what? >> ron priebus, take a listen. >> i believe our parties had a real quality of contacts problem. and what i mean is that we have

become a party that parachutes into communities four months before an election. while that is how we operated years and years, and done well as compared to ourselves. in comparison to the other side, the obama campaign lived in these communities for years. the relationships were deep. they were authentic. >> he is absolutely right. >> yeah. priebus announced 10 million dollar plan funded by the rnc that would focus on establishing permanent footholds in african-american and asian communities. they would begin their campaign sooner. >> a great idea too. he was talking about a june or july convention. >> right. >> less debates. >> less debates. >> i think it's great. >> for the next presidential election cycle which makes a lot of sense. maybe seven or eight of them instead of 23. to stop the party from

cannibalizing itself later on. it's sort of looking like rebranding. >> what is wrong? you don't like that idea? >> i think it will be hard to enforce. >> why is that? >> a lot of media organizations that want to do debates and the party can't stop those organizations from offering to do debates and candidates offered a chance to debate and candidates can say abstract better to have fewer but all of them want screen time. the problem is the party has no enforcement mechanism to keep candidates from taking part and a lot of offers for debates. >> for certain communities. sounds like a rebranding. also at cpac, sarah palin challenged the party brass to stop trying to rebrand the gop. she blasted establishment figures for their efforts. do they look at each other's speeches before? to only fund the candidates who they consider viable in a general election. a message that drew a quick response from one of the party's

top strategists. >> the last thing we need is washington, d.c. vetting our candidates. if these experts who keep losing elections, you keep getting rehired, bringing in millions, if they feel that strongly who gets to run in this party, then they should buck up or stay in the truck. buck up and run. the architects can head on back too. they can head on back to the great lone star state and put their name on some ballot. though, for their sake, i hope they give themselves a discount on their consulting services. >> first of all, i live in texas. i don't live in washington. >> you're a little dirty here now. >> second of all look. sarah palin should be agreeing with this. she didn't support todd aiken

and when he said the reprehensible things he said she wisely said he should get out of the race. i'm a volunteer and don't take a dime from american red cross. i pay my own travel expenses out of my own pocket. i would be enthused if i ran for office to have her support. i don't think i'm a particularly good candidate, a balding fat guy and second of all if i did run for office and win, i'd serve out my term. i wouldn't leave office midterm. >> my goodness. >> well, now. >> come on now. >> i don't even know where to begin. cpac, winners and losers. >> jeb bush i think is the dominant figure in this process. >> how did he do there? >> if you read his speech, it was fantastic. i thought it was far and away the most thoughtful speech that anybody put forward but the reception wasn't that good. part of the challenge is the saturday dinner package which is what he got.

or friday dinner slot rather. it's hard to give a rising speech. not many of the younger kids who skip the friday night dinner so his reception in the hall was not that great. >> got pretty dreadful reviews. >> but read it. it's a great speech. >> big black binder he came and read from. didn't seem electrified by it. >> but read it is a defense of how -- we are talking mainly how he was received. >> he wasn't received well. another person who was not received well was bobby jindal. >> i heard that fell flat too. he was telling old jokes? >> a lot of jokes he did at the gridiron. talking about eric holder. >> i see eric holder is here. no, he wasn't. >> that's cpac. yeah, pretty likely. >> you need to draw that line there that. >> he did a whole slot on knotsberry farm that fell flat. nobody got it. >> two wig winners, rand paul and won the straw poll going away and receiving with his speech and marco rubio did

really well. i think you see chris christie sitting there with 7% -- >> who? >> chris christie. >> he was not only excluded, he was insulted there by some extreme voice. >> insult chris christie, you only make him stronger. >> i know. ron, chris christie couldn't have had it any better. first of all, he didn't have to go to cpac and, secondly, he was on everybody's mind at cpac and, third, he fred ahead from the vice presidential nominee in the polling. all in all a big success. i would say the three big winners, rand paul and marco rubio and the guy who wasn't there, chris christie. >> i agree. the democratic party is always the worst three days of the year for the republican party when you have all of these whacko

birds on the fringe fighting with each other. those are the three winners, i agree. chris christie is setting -- a nice position to be the one guy come out incredibly and a good place to be. i think jeb bush, mark is right. he fell flat in the hall, but the platform he is laying down, the idea that republican party has to be a party that takes care and cares about the poor is a very smart place to be and, you know, kind of the direction that priebus was talking about. >> if i could distance myself from what ron said and everybody in the greater manhattan area think about cpac. i don't think they are whacko birds. they are my friends. they are my friends and -- >> did he do that? >> yes, because you know what? >> why? >> you were there. >> i was. >> i spoke at cpac and i've spoken at cpac before and, yes,

there are elements there. but let me tell you something. i've also been at liberal organizing events where there were some crazy, almost bordering on violent people at some labor organizing event. i'm just speaking for myself. nobody else has to say anything! i just -- i just -- >> can i say one thing? >> yes. i know ron, i'm not singling you out because everybody else says the same thing about them, but they are my friends. >> i know you have displayed some affection for rand paul or intrigue with him the last few days. >> i believe that rand paul believes in small government at home and abroad. >> rand paul wants to accomplish the departments of education and congress and epa. >> small detail. >> and the federal reserve and abolish the income tax. the second amendment which does not allow in his opinion for any form of gun control whatsoever. he makes mitt romney look looks

michael due dukakis. >> i paint in primary colors. >> these are details. >> they are details i would just as soon ignore. on some of those fronts. but, again, overall, the primary message that he delivers is less government at home and restraint abroad which you know what? the republican party has been reckless over the past decade. we have paid a lot for it with our philosophy. and so i think he's a good symbol like his father. listen. i voted for his father in the republican primary in 2012. did i agree with what he said about 9/11? >> god, i hope not. >> absolutely not. there are a lot of things that rand paul said i think are way out there and i disagree with, but the core issue of small government at home and restrained foreign policy abroad, i will --

>> not a realistic setting. >> people for symbolic purposes. >> joe doesn't like paper money either. he wants to get rid of the dollar bill. >> we are into a bartering system at the scarborough house. >> you got a problem saying we should rebrand the party. it's a little whacko. nothing wrong with being a little whacko. >> can you admit your party is a little whacko? >> absolutely! there is extremists on both sides but if you put a bunch of people in a room, can you say that too and they did this weekend. >> left wing activists in a room? so outnumbered. makes me sad. how to turn your child into a better student. dr. david satcher will be here and alexis glick with a report on that.

also with us -- ♪ >> i tried to recover here from the way we started but we end the block badly too. also with us is chuck todd and the "the washington post" eugene robinson. up next a look at the top stories and the politico pl playbook. in new england and mid-atlantic, winter forecast a lot of you with a snow day throughout tuesday. isn't so much today in new england but winter storm warnings from all portions of northern new england and southern new england a mix there. a little on the coast, a little bit less. let me show you have the storms are. two one nasty weather to minnesota and north dakota with blizzard conditions and one riding through the ohio valley. outside of washington, d.c., we

do have reports of snow in the beltway itself. the roads are warm enough it will just be wet. this is the snowfall forecast from one of my computers. i'm leaning towards this. the rest of the forecast looks pretty good. notice that new york city not much but enough to shovel from hartford. the majority of it falls tonight into early tomorrow morning so tuesday morning 24 hours from now, we will have a lot of trouble out there of people trying to get to school and also trying to get to work. the rest of the forecast, again, just a wintry mix during the daylight hours from philadelphia to baltimore and d.c. and pittsburgh. later tonight after the evening rush hour the snow moves into the hudson valley of new york state. birmingham to nashville, strong storms risk with large hail and

damaging winds. this march has been very cool across the northern half of the country and now on the east coast. you're watching "morning joe," brewed by starbucks. ♪ [ female announcer ] how do you define your moment? the blissful pause just before that rich sweetness touches your lips. the delightful discovery,

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28 past of the hour. let's take a look at the morning papers. "wall street journal," the republican party is partnering with silicon valley to launch a massive digital effort to target voters and donors. the push backed by karl rove and former executives from sun micro systems is designed to give republican systems a leg up where many struggled last cycle. >> i want to be careful when i say this. karl rove ran through how much money last year? >> a lot.

>> how much? >> tens of millions. >> no. over hundreds of millions. >> goodness gracious. >> i'm not saying karl should be set on the sidelines. but, man, he saw nothing coming. nothing. in fact, he was still sound like the boy in the plastic bubble like late into the evening on election night. still not knowing about -- >> with all of that money, had the worst record than the new york mets. >> he had a terrible record. again, i'm not knocking him, but he is the only guy we have? i mean, even people extraordinarily close to george w. bush said karl had his own numbers. you know? you never knew what you were getting with karl. is this the only guy that our millionaires and billionaires want to give money to? look. i love karl. give karl some money, but we need some other people. >> who you got?

>> crossroads had 1.2% success rate. i don't know. somebody that knows how to win. >> let a thousand flowers bloom. >> let a thousand flowers bloom. karl is at the head of all of these things. i'm just saying, we don't need to have a karl rove monopoly this year. what he did in 2002, pretty damn remarkable and also in 2004. he got 2006 completely wrong. >> he has a what not to do litigation, right? >> maybe so. >> i'll say one thing. the way in which karl got things wrong was a problem within the republican party. most republican polsters, almost all, where exactly where he was thinking that mitt romney was going to win. so that problem is a systemic problem. the party got it wrong across the board. >> you know why? because they lived inside their

own media bubble. >> i agree wmt. >> at the end of the day, karl rove lived and breathed inside the media/conservative bubble. >> it's hard to find an alternative. it's hard to find someone either a strategist or polster in the republican party who is out there yelling at the rest of the party. you guys are all wrong. it's hard to find somebody who is right within the party. >> you know what i started saying in early september. we were going to lose. >> yeah. >> i got absolutely savaged. i was absolutely savaged. i said we are going to lose. the romney people didn't have their act together. that this was slipping away. i said that in early september. i said the convention was a disaster. and i got absolutely massacred. i wonder if anybody working inside the conservative media bubble would be given that much latitude to say that without getting attacked viciously from inside that bubble?

what do you think, mark? if not, that's a real problem. >> the question now. one thing about rand paul although some of his views are too extreme for receive, he is telling the party that they need to change, right? the party needs to change. jeb bush is telling the party it needs to change. >> right. >> i was stunned that marco rubio said we don't need ideas. we have our ideas. >> it's pretty stunning. >> because they are currently a minority party and demographically it will get worse. >> did you see the "time" story i think talking about whites are becoming a minority in this country and how rapidly the hispanics population is growing? we have seen the trends coming and seems to be accelerating. you look at that story and you realize -- the republicans need to figure out how to make small government conservatism, less taxes, less regulations, more freedom, relate to an

18-year-old latino in los angeles as a 65-year-old hedge fund broker in greenwich, that's it. they do that and win elections in the future. >> not that cpac defines the republican party but you saw over the weekend some think the party doesn't need to change and others think they need to. >> in many ways, i thought it was a good cpac because you did have the rand paul wing, you did have jeb bush there, you did have marco rubio there. a lot of things -- i was actually encouraged by a lot of things i saw there. don't tweet me what some freako said out in the lobby while smoking a joint. i don't want to hear about that. i don't care. i'm talking big picture. i was encouraged by what i saw there. >> let's not forget politico. with us now is mike allen here with the morning playbook. good morning. >> good morning. >> let's talk quickly. you had winners and losers from

cpac and we talked about it before. i know we want to talk about this israel story. i thought a fascinating list you put yesterday on your playbook. who were the winners and losers? >> the run-away winner rand paul, stand with rand is our james homeman said is the unofficial slogan of cpac and people loved marco rubio. jeb bush was a loser because of the way the speech was delivered. like mark said, it read better than it sounded. chris christie was a winner! he did fine in the straw poll even though he wasn't there. >> he came in third! >> it's pointed out he is better off. if he had been invited and turned them down he would have taken flak for that. if he had gone, he might have been booed. now he has distanced from the republican establishment and, yet, did just fine. people showed they are looking

at him on the future. on the point about karl, the next couple of hours we will see the republican party's plan going ahead, their growth and opportunity project. priebus, the chairman, is a birthday boy today. he is showing his new plan and we have a sneak peek at their campaign mechanics section, in addition to their data. we will have political directors for african-americans and asians and hispanics. >> mike allen, thanks very much. we will get to the second part of politico later. coming up, march madness brackets are set and bill karins about ljoin us to break down the favorites next in sports. [ female announcer ] going to sleep may be easy, but when you wake up

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♪ 39 past the hour. i chose this from "the new york times" yesterday. michael mudd writes this. how to enforce ethics on the food industry. with tobacco the length between product and disease is direct and singular but it is less clear with food. the rise in obesity is the result of multiple factors. suburban life discouraged walking and escalators replaced

walking. even the increase in two become households has had an huge. discouraging cooking and increasing reliance on packaged food and chain restaurants. it it all adds up. he writes this. the industry is guilty because it knew what the consequences of his actions might be. large food processors employed a flock of ph.d. nutritionists and scientists. it was as plain as the number on the bathroom scale but instead of acknowledging this and taking action to sell a better product more responsibly food processors paid innocent by blepeding in with the crowd of causes and time to end the charade and mandate the needed changes that the industry has refused to make. i thought it was snating afascid in line what we are talking about more and more these days.

the book "sugar fat salts." the author we had on and wrote "the new york times" magazine piece how the food industry is how it's involved and it may need to change and this may go the same way the cigarette lawsuits did, i think it's all coming together. >> ron fournier we can see what happened to the cigarette industry over the past decade and tobacco industry. still a tough fight for lawmakers. i think this jump is much larger jump and i think there is going to be a a lot of frustrated legislators, even though there is, obviously, a real connection between obesity, health care issues and our growing national debt. but bloomberg is seeing, it's not so easy to do. >> the article really makes a smart point about how deeply ingrained this is as a cultural

problem and almost like the drunk driving analogy and how it took 20 years of reeducation of the entire populous to really get us to understand that drinking and driving was a huge problem. it wasn't something that could be litigated. it was something that had to be attacked culturally. maybe instead of trying to think about how we enforce integrity on this industry, we think about how we get money out of the industry to help educate the populous like we did with cigarette smoking. >> hopefully, something can happen onity own. everyone says that i want -- i can't think of a better idea. i don't see it as michael bloomberg's loss. i think he has pushed this issue into the national psyche and it's actually going to help some people. >> we could do some things, though. if the federal government wants to get involved then they can attach federal dollars to schools having p.e. for one hour. >> my gosh. unbelievable. they don't move. >> kids do not move. >> they don't move. you wonder why they are fat.

>> strenuous exercise would not only be good for them when it comes to health but help them learn better in school. we know at times we have all exercised. you get charged up. don't smirk at me like i've never exercised before, rattner. >> you like to say you never exercise. >> i just smoke and drink and eat a lot. >> that's what he says. >> but i think you're exactly right, ron. i think we need to have cultural changes. i want to bring up what coca-cola is doing. mika says they are doing it just to prevent a lawsuit. i'm not so sure about that. coke has been around a hundred years. they have have impressive initiatives and i think if other corporations like coca-cola step up and start pushing these initiatives and start pushing. i would love to see some of these massive grocery store chains start working aggressively at putting, you know, whole foods type stores in

these food deserts in urban centers. >> at a price people can afford. whole foods is wonderful but you can't afford it. ridiculous the prices. >> easy to make cultural changes than legislative ones. >> one is big here because they want to get in front of it. >> michigan has the highest obesity rate. prohibiting putting in kind of these restriction oz drink size. >> did they really? they dichlt i wad. >> i want to know how orlando airport can be gum-free. >> ron has to take his child to school. >> ron, thanks. >> ron, thank you so much for being with us. >> thanks for having me. >> we hope you'll come back. >> any time, any time. >> margaret carlson is with us fairly soon. >> that's good. >> you know what we just learned? >> orlando is a gum-free airport. >> no. that mississippi is like the

asylum country for munchkins at some point. it will just be mississippi. >> different cities are fat. >> do you think that i do anything by accident? why do you think i went to ole miss's homecoming game last year? there is the munchkin! >> think about that guy. chuck todd, eugene robinson and a cast of millions straight ahead. ♪ i'll be there if you want me to ♪ as your life and career change, fidelity is there for your personal economy,

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selection sunday. s.e.c. florida taking on surprising ole miss team in nashville. second half. ole miss by three. marshall henderson. he averages 20 points a name and some people question his attitude including this gator mock chomp to the groued after th crowd after the three. they missed the foul shot and off the front of the rim. ole miss hangs on and stunning upset there. >> ole miss! >> now to the big ten. people call the best conference in basketball during the season. ohio state facing wisconsin fresh off their win over indiana. aaron craft, pesky, pesky defense minded point guard. not the best outside shooter. >> what is his name? >> aaron craft. >> i thought you said and crack. >> hard-nosed point guard and leads ohio state to the victory

there. the acc, it was about 53 all at the half. james mcadoo finally gets the easy alley-oop. no one in sight there for miami. miami pulls away walate in the game and beat unc. north carolina a disappointing year and only with the 8, 9 seed in the dance. vcu darling there year. they are back. they are in the finals against st. louis. st. louis is a legit team. don't have any hesitation putting either of these teams pretty far into your brackets. st. louis, though, finishes the game off, though, at the end. they beat the pressure there. get the three. st. louis wins and hold on 62-56. st. louis planned to watch the selection show at the airport but ran into traffic around new york city out of brooklyn so they had to settle for watching it at a best buy.

they jumped in, had the comfy couches and surround sound. here is the selection committee came up with and don't expect kentucky left out along with southern miss and alabama lest out there year and tennessee and virginia and iowa. here is how the brackets go. break down the midwest bracket first. louisville have all of their players returning from last year and gave that great kentucky keep all they could handle. tough to knock louisville out in the first two rounds. they beat missouri earlier this season by 20 points so don't hesitate to put louisville into your bracket. if you want an upset watch for creighton and possibly memphis. blue jays are legit. the west bracket number one seed gonzaga. ohio state people hofg they would come out of the bracket. wichita state is a legit team out of the midwest in the second round. upset special out of this

bracket, look for bellmont over wisconsin and south bracket. a lot of people people call this a weaker bracket. kansas number one seed in this bracket. we talked about vcu in here and georgetown and florida. as far as the matchup for kentucky in the second round everyone loves to see it and seen it a lot lately. roy williams possibly if unc can advance taking on his own old team kansas there in the second round! finally to the east bracket number one seed indiana, number two seed miami. watch out for the california bears is my upset team here. they are playing in san jose. only 90 miles from their home court so they easily could have home court advantage. syracuse in the second round. take the number one seeds all the way louisville on one side. indiana on the other. that is going to be the most popular paragraph in the final. >> yeah, okay. >> do you have yours? >> let's fill these out and then

we will read them tomorrow on the show. i'm going to lift nate too. i like florida. i went to florida law school. >> can't go wrong with math. >> go gators. >> he likes math. didn't work out too well for him in the super bowl but he did pretty well in the election. >> tiebreaker. >> i've done mine. >> this is the tiebreaker. i'm going to figure out what he says. >> why work hard on this? you just know it. >> march madness. that's what it's called. >> you do your homework. >> you outsourced that, mika! >> i did not. >> what is wrong with you? still ahead on "morning joe," congressman tom graves says the ryan budget is just what the country needs to get the economy back on track. he joins us straight ahead. also msnbc news chief white house correspondent chuck todd

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coming up next, margaret carlson is standing by. plus "the washington post" eugene robinson joins joins the conversation. we will be right back with much more "morning joe." ♪ do we have a mower? no. a trimmer? no. we got nothing. we just bought our first house, we're on a budget. we're not ready for spring. well let's get you ready. very nice.

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you should have seen what todd got me for christmas. well, it wasn't that exciting. it's a metal rack, a case for a hunting rifle to put on the back of a four-wheeler. and then, though, i had to get something for him to put in the gun case, right? so this go around, he has the wilv rifle, i got the rack. oh, bloomering is not around . e

our bill gulp is safe. it's just pop with low cal ice cubes in it. i hope that is okay. >> ron rattner is still bus and mark halpern. in washington pulleyser prize winning columnist and editor for "the washington post" eugene robinson. i have to ask you a question. mika is still simmering over that last -- >> no, i'm good. sometimes you just let a story breathe. >> i was entertained. i thought that was some fun stuff. >> me too. >> breaking out in washington, eugene, you have john boehner saying that he trusts the president, right? that's pretty good. he wouldn't have said that six months ago. you got dick durbin going on "meet the press" saying, hey -- or fox saying we got to get a

deal done. >> porker. >> also on chris wallace's show saying, yeah, more taxes and big entitlement reform. it sounds like we may be marching towards a deal. >> well, thank heaven for small favors, right? because, you know, in the cosmic sense, it shouldn't be news that congress and the president think it might be a good idea to make a deal at some point. but that's a great thing these days. so far, i'm not sure i share all of the optimism about a deal, because i think there's still some fairly enfrentrenched posis that are hard to abandon but maybe it's morning again in america. >> we are at a better place than we were last week, margaret, aren't we? >> i think is saying trust, but verify. there is some hesitation there. i think the charm offensive worked a little bit and they are

exhausted. the war has exhausted them. >> right. >> and neither side was getting clear-cut victory so they decided to call a truce and some of people like corker have always been reasonable but people like boehner have to worry about their caucus. >> mika, for democrats, there is never really a political -- i mean, anything but a political advantage in taking republicans on a budget fights because we usually always lose those fights for one reason or the other. some of us would say because the press hates even a small reduction of spending increases. >> it's a harder thing to to do. >> harder to explain why we have to give people less money so we get our brains beaten out because somebody finds tommy smith from the ozarks who is going to get 13 cents less than month than last. the stories are horrible. you put the black hats on the republicans. what happened with sequestration for the first time in some time,

democrats really lost a budget battle, a budget showdown. now the white house understands there is risk on both sides moving forward. and americans believe more and more like steve rattner and like i believe that we have to stop this generational theft. >> steve, you take a look at both budget plans on a number of different levels and compares them because still quite some differences between them. >> there are differences and the differences are greater i think than they try to portray. both sides chose their base plans. not to rain on the parade but i think this is tougher slog than we might think. start with the overview of the two budget plans. if you go back to before the sequestration and use that as your baseline, paul ryan is talking about 6.1 trillion of deficit reduction the next ten years and almost all of from the spending side. party murray on the budget side of the democrats is talking $2.3

trillion of deficit reduction and half come from taxes and the balance come from spending, 975 billion from spending. a vast difference in size and significant difference in priorities. if you try to break down those priorities and look at some different categories of spending, you can see that in the discretionary side, this is the stuff that the sequester effects. ryan wants to cut 1.2 trillion which is 3 billion more than the sqester. party murray wants to cut 600 billion less than the sequester so the democrats the to store 600 billion of the sequester money. the democrats want 100 billion for jobs -- >> can i interrupt you there? par patty murray knows they will restore a dime -- >> i am trying to highlight major differences between the two sides. >> explaining to people at home, that's a good negotiating start if i were patty murray and a democrat, that's exactly where i

would start knowing we are probably going to end up at the same place but this could be something i give republicans. >> i think the two sides have started as far apart as you can imagine and still have credibility. the health care law, ryan wants to appeal the cost of obama care but keep the revenues from obama care. that gets 1.8 billion and patty murray doesn't want to do anything to obama care. medicare and medicaid. most of the cuts from medicaid by turning it back to the states. a little bit in medicare. ryan's plan is after we go to the voucher premium support, whatever you want to call. ryan has a trillion dollar cut in foot stamps, unemployment and agriculture subsidies and some stuff you want to cut and some you don't want to and you try to boil it down together and say what does this do to the debt? the gdp ratio.

about 79% and this is presequester. the murray plan takes us down to 70% which is a little bit lower than where we are today at 73%. you can see the curve goes up and then it comes down and stabilizes. i think what most budget people view as the minimum acceptable amount of deficit reduction and still have something credible. simpson/bowles to 64%. ryan 55%. we would like to get there but the magnitude of what ryan wants to do to spending. >> neither of these programs take on intiltsments, do they? >> well, ryan takes on entitlements by going to this supreme support plan after 2023. the problem with that plan he has version 3.0 and in that version, there is really no guarantee that he would actually hit his numbers. he basically introduces some private competition but there is no guarantee that he would actually achieve the kinds of reductions he is talking about. >> what kind of growth rates do these people assume? >> for? >> for all of these plans.

>> you mean of overall spending? no. in terms of the economic growth. >> oh, they use -- these are all scored off of the cbo numbers which is something like 2.5% or 3% growth over the period. your point, i think, is there are risks to this and run of the reasons even patty murray's plan is not acceptable we don't hear the growth numbers we will hear up in worst shape. >> does anybody think we can grow faster? >> i think some people think if you radically restructure the government maybe along the lines that joe is talking about it would make us grow faster but i'm skeptical about that. i think we have a lot of head winds. i think if we went to 3% we would have a great outcome. >> how do you get to 3%? >> in ideal world you get to 3% by deficit programs and giving people some certainty. >> let's talk about the certainty. a lot of things the federal government can do they doot don't have to create massive new bureaucracies or grand new

schemes to grow the economy. business owners, large and small, have been saying for years, they want certainty before they get back in the market. what are some of the things the president can say, guys, women, don't worry, over the next four years, i will not blank. >> i don't think it's for the president to say. i think what gives certainty is the president and congress come up with a long-term budget plan that we are not budgeting two months at a time and people can look at that and say i know what my tax rates are going to be and i know what the government's role is going to be. a story in "the times" where ethanol came into the market and created an ethanol industry and now killing it and not the way to run a railroad. >> can we really consider the ryan budget if obama care is not going to be repealed, can we all agree on that? and he is taking the money and not taking the cost? i mean, his premise is wrong. >> well, his premise -- you can

keep the revenue and not have the program. there is falls in the numbers but leave that for another day. ryan wants to cut us to two tax rates 25% and 10%. that has been scored now as being incredibly regressive and puts a huge amount of money in the hands of the wealthy. ryan says he will propose tax loophole closings and preforms level that playing field but the math probably doesn't work and he hasn't specified about what they are. >> what about tax reform? something president obama and the republicans in congress all say they want to do. with would that be a place to start? >> everybody wants corporate tax reform. our system is broken. it creates the wrong incentives and leads to more jobs yaever s overseas. it has to come as part of a bigger package it to get the numbers to work and the bigger package of tax reform, i think, is somewhat dubious because everybody talks about the

trillion dollars of loopholes but nobody wants to eliminate the home interest deduction and all of that stuff is off the table. the times had an editorial all of these loopholes. you add up those numbers and it's a rounding error. the only way to deal with this is to attack the big stuff. >> conservatives are coming off their annual conference over the weekend but still big signals the party is not on the same page going forward. republican party chair reince priebus is pointing to branding as a major problem for the gop in the last election. >> i believe our parties had a real quality of contacts problem and what i mean is that we have become a party that parachutes into communities four months before an election and while that's how we operated for years and years, and we have done well compared to ourselves, and comparison to the other side,

the obama campaign lived in these communities for years. the relationships were deep. they were authentic. >> priebus announced 10 million dollar plan funded by the rnc that would focus on building permanent footholds in hispanics, african-american and asian communities. priebus also said the party would look at moving um the convention to allow the nominee to begin their presidential campaign sooner. and he says he wants fewer debates next presidential election cycle. perhaps seven or eight instead of 23 to stop the party from cannibalizing itself early on. what do you think of that, joe? >> i think it's a great idea. waiting all the way into september, as i was saying earlier if you're inside that conservative bubble, it's hard to criticize your team. i remember criticizing mitt romney after the convention saying, boy, that was a nightmare. then, boom! they are running towards the finish line. i just think a june convention would be great.

regardless of how it went. >> much better. then you get the money. >> yeah. >> remember, mitt romney couldn't get his hands on the money between the end of the primary and the convention. >> right. >> you know, i am against not having so many debates. i want 23 debates. the press loves the debates. but for the party, it was terrible. >> it was a destructive process. >> mark, what do you think about an earlier convention? >> i think this outreach thing is more important than that. the convention you do run risk moving it earlier. you spend your general election money earlier so it has to extend over a longer period of time. you lose the momentum that the convention uniquely brings. i think a lot of people in the republican party will be stunned to hear they weren't reaching out to people in the country. now they have to do it and in an effective way when they don't have the white house and when their ability to drive a national message is pretty limited, but it's absolutely essential that they start to

show up in places and, again, i think some people will be surprised to know they didn't do that before. >> no doubt about it. eugene, what do you think about the outreach plan? >> the outreach would be great if the republican party actually does that. it would be great. it would be good for the country and it certainly would be good for the party. but what about a couple of items that are kind of missing from that. it's like better candidates and policy positions that are closer to those of the people you'd like to vote for. one of the big problems this past time around was that the debates, not just that there were so many of them, but they looked like the bar scene from "star wars." and that was a problem. >> wait. when policy positions specifically separate the republican party from the african-american community the most? if you could list the top three issues that make that sort of outreach difficult for republicans in 2013, what are they? >> gee.

where to begin. >> just the top three. count them down, kasey kasum. >> social -- social -- social spending and social uplift, in general. which is a range of programs that people in many african-american communities and many latino communities believe is vital. >> like what programs specifically are the most important? >> well, i would say employment training, education, housing. >> obama care. >> health care is a huge one, uh-huh. >> okay. any other issues? gene, i'm trying to get you to help my party here. what is another issue some what is another issue we need to work on? >> here is how your party can appeal to african-americans. your party, first of all, can go there, number one. >> a great start. by the way, gene, it is an

amazing thing. you know what happens when you do that i know this will drive my many critics crazy. probably 3% of the african-american vote my first election. i spent a lot of time the next two years for a lot of different reasons. engage in the community. i got 50% of the vote my second. my re-election. >> richard nixon -- >> 98% of, you know, work is just showing up. >> you show up. it makes a difference. >> it's not that long ago, republicans could get a third or more of the african-american vote. richard nixon did. so it can be done. there is an appeal. but, i think, republicans to have to formulate their message in a way that connects with and makes sense to not just african-american communities, but latino and asian americans as well who voted helpful against republicans in this past

election and the whole -- one big problem with the republican party, frankly, if its image as a country club, as a white preserve, as a southern party that welcomes the sort of most ravenus elements of the old south. >> that's not true. i can tell it you why that's not true. i don't even know what that means! >> exactly! >> how could i only allow the most ravenus elements in my country club? >> well, you could do it unknowingly, i guess. >> we got a lot of teenagers watching the show. we got a lot of teenagers watching the show, okay? if you could watch what words you use here, we would appreciate it. >> long for the days of old. >> is that what it means? >> margaret, before we close, it does seem -- i-i'm going to use that word today in a column. it's a good word. >> as your teacher would say,

use it in a sentence properly. joe, went from 3% to 50% because you're in, in obama's words, likeable enough and you went and talked to people. what happens is it's not just about what programs you do, it's how you talk to and about the group you're trying to reach. during the presidential campaign, you know, those people were the takers, not the makers. they were the 47% living off government. even after mitt romney lost, he is blaming it on all of the things democrats are giving to minorities and that is why they voted for obama. it's a lack of respect for, you know, who gets what from government and how much, as steven would say in that editorial yesterday, i mean, the tax code is totally tilted in favor of the people who already have and not in the people trying to get. so you, joe, might have talked to people in a way that allowed them to come over to you so 47% increase in your

african-american vote. but the republicans, in general, haven't found a way to do that. >> you got to do two things. if you go into the community, that's a great start but once you go into the community, you see things that have been ignored for years. in my case, it was a brown fill site where a lot of african-american families, 3 b300 families had been moved on to this site. it was a toxic dump. nobody had done anything about it. i started working hard -- >> you got government to fix it? >> i started working hard to get it relocated and once republicans and democrats in washington found out what happened, they worked on it and it was a pretty -- harold ford jr. the first time he met me on the floor what you're doing down in florida is land mark. what have you done and how did you get to it? i said i just went into the community. i didn't have to go vote for higher taxes or do these things that i was against idle lodeol y

ideologically. >> what you did is called environmental justice. >> right. >> if you had gone to cpac and said words environmental justice, what sort of reception would you have gotten? it fi had gone to cpac and said you know what i did? i found 300 families that had been moved on top of a brown stone site, brown-filled site and their young children your reasoning around on a toxic waste dump and we had to get them out of there because government screwed up putting them there in the first place, i think i would have been just fine. >> people like the truth. even at cpac. >> i would say we cannot be -- what was the word? ravenus? >> we cannot be a ravenus party, my friend. >> exactly. eugene robinson, thank you. >> environmental justice.

>> margaret, stay with us. still ahead. >> then i would castro. dr. emily is senae joins us. and rep tom graves joins us next along with chuck todd from washington. you're watching "morning joe." it's monday.

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look. it's snowing in washington. it's pretty. >> i'm a northwest florida guy. seeing snow come down all day on st. patrick's day. >> time to wake up. >> time to spring. >> everyone get to work right now. >> wow. here bus now is republican

congressman from georgia, representative tom graves and from washington, host "the daily rundown," chuck todd. loose these two. i could not believe it. >> i find out tom represents my family's district. my mom grew up in dalton, georgia. >> that's right. >> and they lived in -- my family lived in dalton and rome, georgia. you're it. >> northwest georgia. >> ruby falls and rock city. that's big stuff. >> you know it well. it's a great area. wonderful folks there. >> oh, my gosh. it's fantastic. >> that must have been a transition coming to washington. >> it's very much. i'm just a north georgia country boy. >> how many people live in your town? >> i lived in a small town of ranger. 93 to 95, somewhere in there. >> 93 to 95 people? >> that's correct. >> 93 to 95? >> i'm in the suburbs, though. i'm more in the rural part of our town. >> so saxby chambliss, a dear

friend of mine, is getting out of the senate. some people that you had about you possibly running for the senate. you decided not to. why? >> i did, i did. you know, that's a tough decision, quite frankly. you have a lot of supporters that are with you and want you to do it, but it's hard to tell them no, but, ultimately, my family and i thought put our district and georgia first. not this time. maybe in the future. >> first things first. chuck todd, of course, a lot of talk from the senators this weekend about doing a deal. bob corker from tennessee said he was up to a deal. dick durbin said we might be moving towards a grand deal. of course, they have to position themselves appropriately for their bases running at home. are you skeptical this week that a deal could get done? >> i don't know. i think even hrybody has their hearts hearts in the right place.

can they do a deal that is big enough on entitlements, for instance, medicare and social security, that allows john boehner to get off his pledge and enough house republicans to say, okay, we will accept some new revenue. whatever that number is. 200 billion over two years or whatever it is through tax reform, can be that accepted? you heard john boehner and mitch mcconnell have drawn thick lines in the sand. seems like they have turned it into concrete. so i don't know, while you hear corker say what he says, while you hear some others talk about it i don't know. the president will not do spitlement reform without something because it's painful for his base. >> oh, sure. >> without something on tax increases and i don't see how it happens. >> wow. >> chuck, my question for you and for the congressman as well is do you think that boehner would violate the so-called hester rule on the revenue side? would he allow a senate revenue

bill to go through with the minority of the republicans supporting it? >> what is the number? i think if you have -- any time the senate is sending over legislation that has probably 75 votes for it, i think that boehner -- we have already seen him do that. he has already done it. there is major bills already. violence against women act was one and the fiscal cliff was another and sandy relief was another. he'll do it if there is huge numbers of republicans. not three or four. but double digit republican senators doing it. look. boehner all but said that. he is saying, hey, go get this done somewhere else. you're not coming to me first. i'm not doing any more of these votes. you guys do it first, meaning the senate, and then he would be willing willing to do that. i think he has already shown he would. >> congressman, i have talked to a lot of friends on the hill in the house who say, listen, we have already raised taxes and already cut defense and not lead with our face saying, hey, yeah,

we are going to close loopholes unless we get a big buy-in from the president on massive long-term debt relief bill. is that about where you are right now? >> when you look what happened the past couple of months the president received his tax increases and received those at the beginning of the year and said what he needed to fix the problem and now asking for more. then last week in our conference meeting, the president recognized that the entitlement programs have to be reformed and modernized. >> he did admit that. >> but then conditionally that will not happen. why do you need additional revenue to fix the programs for the future of our -- >> i don't see that. >> the president is in the same position this, i think, we republicans are. we can't go back to our base and say we are closing tax loopholes until we can say we have massive entitlement form. he can't say to his base i cut entitlements but i didn't get

more tax increases for it. >> in essence you're saying to a senior now or somebody who is going to be a senior soon, say you're 57, 58, you know the program is on a path of insolvency and bankruptcy. you're saying i'm not going to fix it unless i get additional taxes from the american people. the american people have said enough to this big government. >> but this is about closing loopholes. not about the american people. right? >> loopholes, think about how he approaches closing loopholes. i want to close loopholes so that i can fund my additional spending. republicans say, look. let's clean out the loopholes and pass the impact to the american people so it does impact american people. >> the question, chuck, is how do you get one side to at that time first step? who makes that first step? is it -- it's certainly the president is not going to step out there alone by himself because he feels like he has already been burned on medicare. >> right. >> republicans, of course, we

get burned every few years on hating senior citizens so the president is doing it again talking about paul ryan's budget. how exactly do you do this with two people holding guns to each other's head walking down pennsylvania avenue? this is what i can't figure out. i mean, essentially what republicans have said we would love to do entitlement reform. mr. president, write the plan. bob corker over the weekend said we haven't heard republicans say they want the president to campaign more except bob corker said they want the president to campaign on these medicare reforms. of course, they do. they want him to provide the cover. and that is understandable. the president is sitting there going i'm not going to do that unless you're giving me something that i can -- i don't know. i think we're at a dead end. at least everybody is talking nicely but i think away at the same dead end we have been at for two years. >> i think out of the ashes will rise a grand bargain.

>> yeah, right. >> you're skeptical. it has happened once. >> what is that? >> they only have to come up with it once is the good news. >> as you said, chuck, get it wrong 999 times. it doesn't matter if it works once! you just need it one time. >> just once, baby. >> just once. >> come on! >> congressman tom graves, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> i'm coming up to dalton. will you meet me there? >> absolutely. >> we will look at the carpet. they are still selling carpet up there. >> they are selling a lot of carpet. doing a great job. >> 93 people! >> shag carpet coming back? >> i hope so! >> chuck todd, thank you. >> i still have been keeping my shag carpet rug in the closet because i know shag is coming back. >> congressman graves could bring it. >> it's my job. >> chuck, see you at about 9:03. coming up, how the u.s. economy -- >> can i ask chuck a quick

question? >> sure. >> chuck, who are your final four? i'm going miami, louisville, give me new mexico, and miami, louisville, new mexico, and give me -- i'm missing one of the one seeds i think will get through there. >> indiana? >> no, because miami is going to beat indiana. >> dreamer! >> come on! show some love. and kansas. i'll throw kansas in there! but new mexico and miami are my number one seeds. go canes. >> the university of florida gators! coming up how the u.s. economy is coming. more "morning joe" when we come back area we are talking carpets. west virginia a lot we have a lot to move before the end of the hour. it's not what you think.

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a march to forget. washington, d.c. maybe it's been a thousand days since you've had 2 inches of snow, but it's snowing this morning out there on the lawn in washington, d.c. again, the roads are probably just wet. temperatures are above freezing but it doesn't make you feel any better about seeing snowflakes in the middle of march. not done. we are watching this spread up

through maryland. 8:00 a.m. the blue is the snow. 5:00 p.m., snowing good in the poconos. then spreads into hudson valley tail end of the rush hour. travel trouble spot. overnight snows very hard through new england and by 6:00 a.m. tomorrow morning a lot of areas are warmer. the green shows you the rain. the snow confined from the mass pike northward. so tomorrow morning will be the recovery time from the snow we get tonight. how much snow are we talking about? our computers as they add this up, we are looking at 6 to 12 once from the cat skills and poconos northward through northern mass and coastal areas 3 to 6 and new york city doesn't look like any accumulation in the big apple. another big winter storm in march and could have one coming a week from now too with no big warm-up in site. how ridiculous is all of this? coming up next, dr. emily senay will join us. . stay tuned. stay tuned. ♪

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"need to know," takes on a faulty mechanic device situation and how they slipped through the cracks of manufacturers and the fda. here with us now is need to know medical correspondent dr. emily senay. good to have you back on the show. >> good morning, mika. >> tell us what you found. >> well, we really look at one particular device and we sort of follow it along and see how it was able to be marketed and then lead to very significant problems. it's no longer on the marketed. and how that sort of reveals what many experts feel are loopholes or problems with the

fda's approval process for certain types of devices. high risk devices must go through very thorough review. but low to moderate risk devices, in many cases, don need to go through that type of very thorough review and can come on the market if the manufacturers are able to show that the device is substantially equivalent to a device that is already on the market. and we're finding that as devices get more complicated and more and more things are changed based on the early device that the thing was sort of proofappr by, problems can happen and they certainly have. >> is the process flawed because they don't test? you have won womone woman with horrible situation and she shue. with this type of device that goes inside the body, do they defenda

test it? >> in this case it wasn't tested in the way in which it was eventually used that turns out to be the big problem with this vaginal mesh device which now i think we will start to hear a lot more about because so many women are now joining these lawsuits against the makers of these vaginal mesh. >> is it for pain? >> it is for pain. it is for the fact once the device has been implanted, it begins to, i guess you could say, scar, if you will, and start to ort sort of contract and pull tissues in the surrounding area which leads to pain and in many cases the mesh begins to erode through the body. >> that's horrific. >> the women have real complications as a result of it. >> a lot of these devices in terms of the process of getting them through is categorized in different way. some low to moderate risk. does that impact how quickly they get onto the market and get used on people? >> absolutely. absolutely. in fact, that is how

manufacturers are able to put devices on the market without going through very rigorous fda approval process. now, in many cases, that's a good thing. we don't want to, you know, block up the pipeline for very important devices to get on the market. on the other hand, if this process is allowing devices to get on the market where there are serious complications, then there is a problem. i think that's where we are right now is looking at -- >> i can't even begin to talk about what happened to this poor woman. and ultimately how getting it out of her body. let me say what the fda says in response to your story. while the majority of these medical devices perform well and improve patient health, medical devices carry a certain level of risk. we are continuing to identify ways to more quickly identify

poorly devices. were you asking them specific about the pelvic mesh? >> not specifically about the pelvic mesh but in general about the process that allowed it to be marketed in the way that it was. very important to say mesh in and of itself is an excellent device and very effective in many cases but in this case it was not used correctly and implanted correctly and once you get it in, you can't take it out. >> is there a problem the fda recognizes and try to do anything about, or do they think anything, broadly speaking, beyond the specific case s fine? >> they have kind of gone both ways. they asked an the institute of medicine to take a look at the process of approving medical devices. the institute of medicine said we see a problem and think you need to overhaul in a couple of

specific areas. at first the fda seemed receptive of that and then came back and said it was fine. controversy, definitely, you know, people don't see eye-to-eye on this. i have to say that the manufacturers think the process is too slow. they want to see a speedier way to market, of course, and they think that it's going to kill innovation if the fda clamps down any further. >> so before you go, we have been talking a lot on the show about the food industry. >> yes. >> and been a lot of books and articles coming out. >> your book coming out. >> okay. obsessed is coming out in may. it's gone to print. you're in it. you give great advice. i think actually the timing of all this is really good. so i'd love you to come back. obviously, for more need to know but during a lunch. >> love to come back. love to talk about food. the food industry and how it's linked to climate change and

consumption. >> our national security in obesity. catch "the need to know" on pbs this friday. check your local listings for time. emily, thanks. tomorrow on "morning joe," we take a look at ten years of war in iraq, where the country is now and who will control it tomorrow. we are going to have an all-star panel including journalist bob woodward and iraq veteran paul rieckhoff. coming up on "morning joe," roger bennett. ♪ [ male announcer ] you are a business pro. governor of getting it done. you know how to dance... with a deadline. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle... and go.

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roger is an adorable human being. >> what? >> he's been -- roger bennett's here. he's handsome. roger, what a horrible, horrible week for liverpool. they had a shot to pull up to number five. loss to lowly southampton. you guys took down man city. >> it was a weekend of shocks. started when manchester city, the defending champions, needed a win to keep in the title hunt. 32nd minute.

look at that air bender. does it remind you of a jon lester curve ball? >> joe hart could do nothing but stare at that thing. >> about four kilometers away from whole. everton. they were reduced to ten mean. one minute to go. a deflected strike sent everton into euphoria. >> how horrible. >> everton struggled of late, joe, as you know. this win has all the makings of a great -- >> it was a nightmare. man city. how pathetic. they have all of these guys. they've got the biggest payroll. best soccer team money can buy. >> indeed. >> and they're going up against everton, for god's sake. >> it's true. >> who was a man down for 35 minutes. >> the end of the day, money can't buy you courage and

collectivity. as tomham hotspur found out. should be allowed to take the field in a smoking jacket and velvet slippers. berbatov. you're starting to feel cocky and confident. >> i was feeling good. if they won this thing and arsenal loss they would have been in fifth place. >> they lost to the mediocre southampton. >> devastating loss for this team. >> by the way, she has beaten me up before. i feel liverpool's pain. >> she's deceptive with that left foot.

>> it's very quick. >> it really bites. manchester united now, wow, so far ahead. >> one hand on the trophy. >> top four places. qualified for the champions league. $30 million on the line for each of these teams. >> the loss was so big. the loss was so big for riv liverpool. >> the u.s. teams played costa rica on friday. then the descendents of the aztecas in mexico city. >> huge. >> the first one in denver friday night. love to take the warm climate teams to the cold and high altitude. they've never won. >> okay. roger. thank you. >> usa going down to mexico city. >> bloody cold. coming up next, sarah palin takes on karl rove over a

superpasupe superpac's losing record. >> america came out. they love their league. we'll talk about it next week. >> i love it. >> okay. all right. who's to blame when it comes to picking candidates in the republican party? that's next on "morning joe." it's monday. a brand new start. your chance to rise and shine. with centurylink as your trusted technology partner, you can do just that. with our visionary cloud infrastructure, global broadband network and custom communications solutions,

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good morning. it's 8:00 on the east coast. 5:00 a.m. on the west coast. do you know it's time to wake up? you need to get out of bed right now. take a live look at new york city. that'll wake you up. back with us onset we have mark halperin. in washington, ron fournier. we begin with the markets where there are big repercussions by a controversial plan by european leaders to partially fund a bailout of cyprus. in exchange for billions of dollars in emergency cash creditors would impose a one-time tax of 3% on all bank deposits under $130,000. it's actually a big story. the tax would be closer to 10% on people who have over $640,000 in the bank. that's according to "the wall street journal" this morning.

people stood in long lines over the weekend to withdraw money before the policy went into effect. now russian president vladimir putin is calling the move, quote, unfair, unprofessional and dangerous. russian citizens make up the majority of billions of euros held in cyprus bank. this is important. >> steve rattner, why does this matter? cyprus. >> who cares about cyprus, right? >> actually, we should. >> cyprus hill. >> what does it matter? come on. tell me if somebody sneezes in cyprus we get a cold on the nasdaq? >> we're going to have a cold on the nasdaq because the nasdaq is going to go down today. two reasons why this matters. obviously not many people care about cyprus. first, this is an example of how the europeans have screwed up the bailout by trying to get the depositors to pay part of the cost. you now have a run on the bank. you could have a run on the banks in europe azure pees euroy

why do i have my money in this bank? i could be next. it shows europe is still a mess. they have a whole bunch of problems. cyprus may be really tiny. it can affect behavior in other parts of the eurozone as we saw with greece. it's a case where the europeans are trying to punish a bunch of russian oligarchs who have deposits in cyprus bank and it backfired on them. >> so the markets. are the markets going to all go down because russian oligarchs are angry at cyprus? >> it shows the europeans do not know what they are doing. >> they don't. >> well, okay. when people realize that they lose confidence. mar markets go down. people get scared. >> you see osborne's in trouble now. still in trouble. some of his own conservatives are telling him to back off a little bit on the austerity front. >> i was in london last week -- >> of course you are. >> of course i was. mika goes to south of france. i should be able to go to london. >> right. >> we stay here and toil in the fields. but go ahead. what did you learn while you

were in london. >> are you going to make fun of me? >> oh, no. we're not making fun of you at all. >> what i learned in london is that osborne is in a tough position. the uk is not growing. it may even go into a triple or quadruple dip recession. the austerity program that he's put in place which, again, is something r us to look at as a lesson for how you do or don't run economic policy has caused the economy to be really slow. >> a lot of tax increases over there in europe. you know, we look at this austerity bit. really quick, i just want to talk about this just for a second. >> then i want to get to cpac and the budget. >> i want to talk about what's happening in washington. but, you know, economics. discussed on tv or on the internet or on twitter. it's so depressing. because people don't really know what they're talking about. they just sort of boil it down. and there's been this belief through the years that tax cuts are not a tool used by

keynesians. of course tax cuts are a tool used by keynesians. and tax increases. something that traditional keynesians are against in bad times. we always hear about austerity in great britain, a cross europe. there'll be talks about the spending cuts. but we never hear about the tax increases. and when you start talking about that, talk about the fact that they cut spending, slash spending at the same time they hike taxes, it really was a formula made to fail. >> spending cuts and tax increases have more or less the same effect. they both take money out of the economy. they both slow the economy. and, yes, they create this idea of austerity. but, look, it's a balancing problem. you need on the one hand to deal with as you well know budget deficits and debt. and on the other hand you need to keep growth going. here's an interesting thing i saw over the weekend just briefly. the recession in greece which is actually a depression, if you line it up against the u.s. great depression in 1929, it looks a lot a like in terms of how much unemployment there is,

how much the economy has contracted. greece is having our great depression of the late 1920s. >> wow. >> all right. moving on to washington now. >> a lot nicer setting. >> president obama's renewed push for a grand bargain may be showing some early signs of paying off, at least with one top republican. senator bob corker of tennessee says he could envision raising tax revenue if democrats embrace big changes to medicare and social security. corker's position on sunday puts him at odds with other members of his party, including house speaker john boehner who's ruling out the prospect of any new taxes. >> i think there, by the way, is a chance on a deal. i know the president is saying the right things. and we have an opportunity over the next four to five months. i think republicans, if they saw true entitlement reform, would be glad to look at tax reform that generates additional revenues. and that doesn't mean increasing rates. that means closing loopholes.

it also means arranging our tax system so that we have economic growth. >> i don't know whether we can come to a big agreement. if we do, it'll be between the two parties on capitol hill. the president got his tax hikes on january 1st. the talk about raising revenue is over. it's time to deal with the spending problem. >> of course, the speaker's going to say that. the speaker has to say it. he's the leader of the republican house. but this weekend confirmed what i said last week. a lot of people are saying, oh, no deal is in the works. they're moving closer together. the key point out of the john boehner interview was, he was asked whether he could trust the president. and his answer was, mark, absolutely. >> yes. and i think it's close to true. enough. >> it's close to true that he can absolutely trust the president? >> there's enough trust, i think, between the parties right now that this can happen. it's really about sequencing. we all could describe the deal pretty clearly and most of its youth lines. it's how you sequence in the

so-called regular ord thaer tere speaker and others are looking for and the white house favors to some extent. make this a congressional progress, get the senate to agree on something, if i may speak indelicately jam the house. basically say to the house this is the deal. >> ron fournier, you've been doing great reporting on this issue over the past couple of months. where are you right now from everything you've seen up close? the white house, of course, responded strongly to your article suggesting that this was all just sort of a charm offensive. the house now is saying there are only certain things we can do. but behind the scenes are you starting to hear a little bit more movement? >> yeah. i'm like mark. i'm getting a little bit optimistic that maybe both sides might have the courage and the foresight to actually step up and lead. i don't believe speaker boehner when he says no more tax cuts. i'm with you. i think that's positioning. i think he's got to do that

right now. i don't believe liberal democrats when they say we're not going to touch entitlements. they've got to realize if they don't attack entitlements in a real serious way it squeezes out all their priorities for the next several generations. i think at the end of the day i've just got to hope that both sides use this next couple months to take care of their bases and they step up and get it done. >> all right. we'll see. >> all right. let's move on to -- well, there's a couple of things to talk about that happened over the weekend. conservatives are coming off their annual conference. but there are still big signals that the party is not on the same page going forward. republican party chair reince priebus -- >> did you get the cpac package on directtv? >> i did. it was so much fun. it was fantastic. >> was it? reince priebus -- >> does that run three days? do you get it all year round? 24/7 the rest of the year? >> i don't know. i've got the v.i.p. package. i don't know if that's different. >> you get a buildup to it. then all the events. 12 cameras.

>> i've got v.ip packages just like you. >> yeah, you do. >> i want to know if this sounds like an attempt to rebrand. reince priebus is pointing to branding as a major problem for the gop in the last election. take a look. >> i believe our party's had a real quality of contacts problem. what i mean is that we have become a party that parachutes into communities four months before an election. and while that's how we operated for years and years, and we've done welcome pal compared to ou, in comparison to the other side, the obama campaign lived in these communities for years. the relationships were deep. they were authentic. >> he's absolutely right. >> yeah. priebus announced a $10 million plan funded by the rnc that would focus on building permanent footholds in hispanic, african-american and asian communities. priebus also said the party would look at moving up the convention to allow the nominee

to begin their presidential campaign sooner. >> that's a great idea, too. he was talking about a june or july convention. >> right. >> less debates. >> less debates. >> i think it's great. >> for the next presidential election cycle. which makes a lot of sense. maybe seven or eight of them instead of 23. to stop the party from cannibalizing itself early on. it's sort of like looking at rebranding. >> what's wrong? you don't like that idea? >> i think it's going to be very hard to impose, to enforce. >> why is that? >> a lot of media organizations, they're going to want to do debates. the parties can't stop the organizations from offering debates. candidates get a cannhance to debate. all of them want screen time. the party has no enforcement mechanism to keep candidates from taking part in debates that are offered. >> i like the plan for footholds in certain communities. sounds like rebranding. but also at cpac sarah palin challenged the party brass to stop trying to rebrand the gop.

she blasted establishment fig e figures for their efforts. do they look at each other's speeches before or no? didn't they look? i remember that was a requirement. to only fund the candidates who they consider viable in a general election. it was a message that grew a quick response from one of the party's top strategists. take a look. >> the last thing we need is washington, d.c., vetting our candidates. if these experts who keep losing elections, you keep getting rehired, raking in millions, if they feel that strongly about who gets to run in this party, then they should buck up or stay in the truck. buck up and run. the architects can head on back to -- they can head on back to the great lone star state and put their name on some ballot.

though, for their sake, i hope they give themselves a discount on their consulting services. >> first of all, i live in texas. i don't live in washington. >> yeah. you're a little dirty here now. >> second of all, look, sarah palin should be agreeing with us. she didn't support todd aiken. when he said the reprehensible things he said, she wisely came out and said he ought to get out of the race. raking in millions. i'm a volunteer. i don't take a dime for my work. i appreciate her encouragement i ought to go home to texas or run for office. i'd be enthused if i ran for office to have her support. i would say this, though. i don't think i'm a particularly good candidate, sort of a balding fat guy. second of all, i'd say if i did run for office and win, i'd serve out my term. i wouldn't -- i wouldn't leave office mid-term. >> oh, my goodness. >> well now. >> come on, now. so i don't even know where to begin. cpac, winners and losers.

>> jeb bush i think is currently the dominant figure in this process. not just because he's a great fundraiser and well known. >> how did he do there? >> if you read his speech, it was fantastic. i thought it was far and away the most thoughtful speech anybody put forward. his reception wasn't that good. part of the challenge is the saturday dinner slot which he got. or friday dinner slot, rather. it's hard to give a rousing speech. it's not as many of the younger kids who skip the friday night dinner. his reception in the hall was not that great. >> pretty dreadful reviews. >> read it. it's a great speech. >> big black binders he came and read from, it didn't seem like a lot were lelectrified by it. >> i don't know that but read it is a defense of -- we're talking mainly how he was received. >> wasn't received well. i'll tell you another person that wasn't received well was bobby jindal. >> i heard that fell flat, too. he was he was telling old jokes. >> a lot of jokes he did at the

gridiron. >> you need to draw that line through there. >> he did a whole riff on knotsberry farm that just fell flat. no one got. >> two big winners there, right? >> rand paul, obviously. won the straw poll going away. was very warmly received with his speech. marco rubio. >> marco. >> marco also did really well. i think actually although you see chris christie sitting there with 7% in the straw poll, actually think he's a winner from this event. >> who is? >> chris christie. being excluded was good for christ christie. both at home and nationally. >> not excluded, insulted. coming up on "morning joe," a new study that could improve your kid's test scores. dr. david sacher, former surgeon general of the united states and alexis glik. up next, despite mounting debt, a stagnant economy and gridlock in washington our next guest says cheer up.

it's not that bad. edward mcbride. why he thinks america's prospects are better than they seem. bill karins? >> here we are in the middle of march. we're going to welcome in spring shortly. it's not going to feel like it any time soon. the whole northern half of the country and much of the eastern seaboard, we have a big storm that's now pushed out of the rockies into the central plains. this is going to cause trouble all the way through the next 48 hours. right now we have some snow exiting minneapolis, heading for wisconsin. wintry mix around chicago. even detroit is going to get a little bit of snow and rain showers as we go throughout the day. the real concern there is up in new england. that's where we're going to stee the heaviest snows. western portions of minnesota, too, you're under a blizzard warning currently. how much snow? a lot today in areas of northern minnesota and wisconsin. significant snows start this evening and will continue early in the morning tomorrow. then all day long, northern new england. my computer is estimating the possibility of 6 to 12 inches everywhere in the pink.

notice all the mountain areas have the potential of getting a foot of snow including the adirondacks, whites, greens, berkshires, poke knconopoconos. coastal cities, 3 to 6 from hartford to providence, boston. new york city less than an inch. probably no accumulation in the city itself. the highest impacts will be after the rush hour this evening. that snow begins to move in. the other area of concern today, severe thunderstorms on the south side of this system. watch out from atlanta, late this evening. huntsville, birmingham, montgomery, jackson. even the nashville area. you're going to deal with a line of storms moving through with possibilities of damaging winds and some large hail. this is like a late season storm. severe weather. then some nasty snow heading up to new york city northward, all through new england. couple snow showers in d.c. today. just an ugly march day. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks.

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21 past the hour on kind of a foggy, snowy day in washington, d.c. joining us now on the set here in new york, editor in chief of buzz beat, ben smith. also with us, edward mcbride. washington bureau chief of "the economist" who has the cover story in the latest issue of "the economist." "the america that works." a special report on the competitive surge that even washington cannot stop. i love the focus of this piece because it's so -- in light of everything, edward, hopeful. >> well, thank you. i think the idea is just to give a sense that even though washington seems totally mired in dysfunction and all the problems that we're used to

wringing our hands about seem so intractable, actually if you go out into the rest of the country things don't look so bad. there's headway being made in those areas. >> like in what sectors? what parts of the country? what are you seeing that works despite washington? >> well, think of some of the things that people normally talk about when they say not only is the economy in a hole because of the recession, but our long-time competitiveness is looking bleak. things like infrastructure. things like education. government regulation. in the states, in cities, governors, mayors, state legislatures are taking on those problems. and producing some quite innovative and quite effective responses. infrastructure is my favorite one. just because we sit around every year lamenting the gasoline tax is bringing in less money. there isn't enough money for road building anymore. at the federal level. in the states, they're coming up with reforms. virginia just overhauled its gas

tax to raise more money for road building. chicago has this scheme to try and channel private money into -- not just road building, but all kinds of infrastructure investments. look around the country and you'll find lots of examples that if congress had its act together they could easily follow. >> ben smith, would you agree? >> i do think this is one of these classic things where washington gives itself too much credit and also, you know, either for destroying the economy or for rescuing it. i think if there's a recovery, barack obama will get 100% of the credit politically speaking on the national stage. i think what edward's talking about, which is these -- there are big economic forces at work that are not -- that even congressmen screaming at each other cannot stop. >> which is always great news. again, we talked about the '90s a good bit. the democrats made some tough choices. republicans made some tough choices. but it helped that we had a tech boom that also grew the economy. >> and every politic who was in office then took credit for both increasing spending and cutting

taxes which is magic you can do when the economy is good. >> right, right. so it seems to me that if you look at the long term, edward, you look at the fact that by 2020 the united states is going to be the number one exporter of oil. look at the natural gas revolution that's going on here, that's going to help fuel a lot of our manufacturing growth and our base. plus the fact that even china suggests we have eight out of the top ten universities on the planet as far as tech research. united states, you suggest, is in pretty darn good shape if washington can do no harm. >> innovation. you mentioned universities. that's -- that's an area where we're constantly told america's sliding. it is sliding in the sense that there's an awful lot of money that goes into r&d in other countries around the world more than used to.

also still money going into r&d here in the states. we recently matched the size of investment relative to the size of the economy that was the previous peak in the u.s. during the space race. 2.9% of gdp devoted to r&d. we hit that again in 2002009. it's not as if the u.s. is slacking off in these areas. it's just that the rest of the world is also in the game. that's no bad thing. it means that there's innovation and growth all around the world and we should be happy about that. >> is it possible, edward, this president might be one of the reasons why some of this is working? >> no. absolutely not. >> well, i mean, as far as investment in r&d is concerned, absolutely. that's one of his things. whenever he says the word investment republicans say investment means, you know, spending. the report is good things have been happening have been happening largely despite washington. not thanks to washington. that holds true for the

president and congress. the things that are going on, and you mentioned just now the shale gas boom and all the benefits that flow from that. sure, you know, congress, the president, they haven't particularly gotten away. but they certainly didn't usher this along. that happened totally unexpectedly, unbeknownst to them, thanks to the private sector, basically. >> ben? >> i was going to ask ben, a lot of talk back and forth about whether a deal gets done, whether a deal doesn't get done. i'm a bit more optimistic than most. what are you hearing? >> well, i do think things like "the economist" cover give -- you know, make republicans in particular in congress think, you know what, maybe we can weather this. sort of the growing sense that there's a recovery has two political sides. one is obama sort of raising the pressure saying, like, you guys don't want to mess this up. also i think there's sort of an anti-spending talk that says if we can weather this, if there's the appearance of a recovery what's the rush? >> mark? >> well, let me ask the question of edward, what's going on overseas? the american economy can't

really grow without markets overseas, without partners. what other countries seem to be doing well on the metrics you looked at for the u.s.? >> of course, there are lots of countries making advances. that's basically the root of the concern, right? if other countries have good schools, if other countries invest in innovation, surely america is falling behind. in some relative sense i guess that's true. but, i mean, looking at the very long term, america has at its fingertips the tools that will help it to build the infrastructure that it needs 20 years from now. it's making the education reforms that should again help produce the workers it'll need 20 years from now. there are lots of other countries doing that. not so much in east asia. people always fixate on china. china is making big strides. but it's coming from way behind. more so in europe. yeah. the economy of europe looks miserable now. but those countries are the ones that have the -- you know, the educated students, the

infrastructure and so on that will help them compete 10, 20 years from now. >> john heilemann -- >> i want to ask a question of ben. >> ben takes anything. >> my sources tell me that buzz feed, i know you're very familiar with, is expanding into business coverage. >> what? >> we've been talking about business here a little bit with edward. i'm curious, are you guys -- pictures of kittens at work, that kind of thing? are you guys going to hard core business reporting? >> i think the classic buzz feed is both. he will require the language in which he write is kittens. >> gifts. >> when are you getting into business, man? >> as soon as we can. we're staffing up now. send your resumes. >> i like that. >> this is huge. you guys are not going to stop. you're like kudzu growing up the side of a georgia barn.

>> kuz feed is what they call it. >> i loved your article. thank you so much for being on. you hear people whining about the united states and all of the problems that we're having. but, you know, i've been saying for some time, no country's better positioned to accexcel i the 21st century than are we. america has 27 of the 30 universities that put out the most cited scientific research. as you say, china is starting from way behind. i think we're pretty good for a while. >> as long as d.c. doesn't totally destroy the progress that's being made in the rest of the country, yeah. i think we're in good shape. >> the issue of "the economist" is out now. edward mcbride, thank you so much. ben smith, stay with us if you can. coming up, why healthy students are better students. alexis glick and former u.s.

surgeon general dr. david satcher are teaming up on a new report linking nutrition and higher performance in schools. they join us next when we come back. [ male announcer ] when it comes to the financial obstacles military families face, we understand. our financial advice is geared specifically to current and former military members and their families. life brings obstacles. usaa brings retirement advice. in the middle of the night it can be frustrating. it's hard to turn off and go back to sleep. intermezzo is the first and only prescription sleep aid approved for use as needed in the middle of the night when you can't get back to sleep. it's an effective sleep medicine you don't take before bedtime. take it in bed only when you need it and have at least four hours left for sleep. do not take intermezzo if you have had an allergic reaction to drugs containing zolpidem, such as ambien. allergic reactions such as shortness of breath or swelling of your tongue or throat may occur and may be fatal. intermezzo should not be taken

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welcome back to -- well, soon to be neighbors.

here with us now, ceo of gen youth foundation, alexis glick and former u.s. surgeon general dr. david satcher. good members of the board. you want to name others. gen youth foundation has a new report out that finds that healthy students are better students. alexis, it makes perfect sense. yet we don't have healthy students. >> you know, it's interesting as a mother of four kids who got into this a couple years ago. i didn't really understand the science behind what we call the learning connection. and i think that's, you know, it's something i learned very closely from dr. david satcher who wrote a report about the learning connection about seven, eight years ago. >> 2005. >> 2005. and what it is, there's an impact on a child's ability to learn and the number one impact is that they're nourished and they're physically a lly active. it has an impact on their performance, behavior, attendance. all these issues we hear about each day. you wonder sometimes in this country why it is that we're

25th or 15th in science or math. all of these things add up. you have to have a healthy child in order to be a good academic performer. >> we're looking at a full screen. that's very interesting. if you look at picture on the left that is what t.j.'s brain scan looks like 24 hours a day. >> it's actually a preadolescent child. same thing. good point. >> to the right, obviously, after 20 minutes of walking, you see the brain much more stimulated. again, something that t.j. hasn't seen since he was running away from the authorities. doctor, talk about what we just saw there and the impact that has on children's lives. >> that's the area of the brain responsible for storing memory. it's really good news to be able to say that when you're physically active, you actually stimulate that area of the brain. children who are physically active learn better. they have better memory. they perform better on standardized examines. especially if you add to that good nutrition. eating breakfast and consuming

the right things. >> so we disagree on many things when it comes to this. mika wants the state to be much more involved regulating sodas, sizes and things. but it seems to me that the state is already involved in educating children. and feeding children with the school lunch program. can't we mandate healthy food? mandate it. then, secondly, don't we have to start mandating more p.e.? because i know when we grew up, in school, you were running around all the time. >> every day. it wasn't a choice. it wasn't an option. >> until very recently, the u.s. department of agriculture in providing free lunch and free breakfast was actually providing foods that were not healthy for children. >> right. >> just recently, of course, we do have legislation. healthy and hunger free kids is the name of the legislation in 2010. that says you not only are able to consume a meal, but it has to

have healthy content. >> what's the quality of that legislation? what's the food that's ending up on kids' plates? because, you know, at one point they were calling ketchup a vegetable. >> increasingly -- >> ketchup's not a vegetable? >> low fat milk, fruits and vegetables. you can blend them, of course, together in things like smoothies. whole grain foods. those are the foods that we're really pushing now. and i think those foods will make a difference. not only in the obesity epidemic, but also in the learning. >> and to your point, joe, i think what's happening is a spotlight is being shown on the school environment. and the reason is, kids are in the school building 180 days a year. it is where they consume 50% of their calories per day. so you have a captive audience in the school building. but what we have to do is we have to direct more resources into the school building. the first thing that's getting cut is access to healthy nutrition. the first thing that's getting cut is access to physical activity. which is why we made an announcement with the first lady

just a couple weeks ago, let's move active schools to get more kids out there and moving. it's critical, though, i come from the business world. and the first thing when i stepped into this epidemic that i said to dr. satcher and to some of our partners is, no one of us can do this alone. there's no one size fits all strategy. we have to do this in a collaborative effort together. so we focus largely on bringing the private sector into the conversation. how do we form a public/private partnership where corporate america is brought into the solution with the public sector and takes a business mentality to help solve the problem in the school building? i think that's starting to work. >> something i've always wondered, my kids in public school in brooklyn have gym once a week. >> once a week. >> that's ridiculous. >> once a week. >> let me tell you, that's nothing. wait till you see some of the statistics. >> this sounds so totally uncontroversial that kids should eat healthy and go to the gym.

who's against this? is this because there's so much testing that's pushing out the other stuff? >> we have cut the budgets. many schools do not have physical education teachers. we say that we cannot afford physical education. at the cdc when i was director in 1996, we did a report on physical activity. and what it showed was that we had cut out physical activity for high school students from 42% beginning in 1990 and even by 1995 it was down to 29%. that's continued to go down. so we're recommending that we return the physical education "k" through 12 and add to that good nutrition. the reason the schools cut out physical education and arts was to help the kids prepare for standardized exams and do better. now we know that was the wrong thing to do. >> it's asinine. show the t.j. charts. t.j. on the left. active m iive human on the righ. you look at that and realize, we all know this intuitively.

that if i exercise, my mind is much more alive and ready, like you said, to memorize things, to process things, and to study aggressively. it's so shortsighted. you talk about false economy. you know, we're going to get rid of the pech.e. teachers so we c get another whatever. >> the elementary and secondary education act which is really the building blocks behind the fact that we want to perform better in school. and i get that. we want to do better on standardized tests. we're not saying it's one or the other. at some schools in the country you're having lunch at 10:30. at other schools in this country you're having lunch at 2:30. our program is called fuel up to play 60. when i came into this business, i thought, oh, my goodness. america's dairy farmers and the national football league. what an odd pairing but what an incredible pairing who have

built this program in schools called fuel up to play 60. we are now in 73,000 schools. there's 100,000 in the elementary and secondary schools. >> what's the impact? >> what we're doing is we're giving grants. anywhere from $1,000 to $4,000. these grants give schools an opportunity to taste, to his point, yogurt parfaits. whether it's smoothies. to get a salad bar. get the physical activity equipment. create what they call brain breaks right now. what you can see in those health scans, brain scans, maybe what we need to do is just to get up for five minutes in the middle of the class day and move. >> there is a curriculum like that. >> five-minute brain breaks can really have an impact. >> we have to be innovative now about how we do the physical activity. because we don't have the resources, we're told, for physical education teachers. but teachers are being innovative. they're getting kids up during the math class and taking ten minutes. >> every class. every teacher should do that. >> i think the biggest message, if i had one message for folks

to walk away with, is we all have to play a role. it's the community leaders. it's parents. as a mother, i care deeply about this issue. if i can tell my four kids at home, listen, if you get up and are active for 60 minutes a day, you could be performing at a grade level higher in reading. you could be excelling in math. these are things that our kids need to know, our communities need to know. and we need to get corporate america engaged in the conversation. because this is a health care issue. this is a productivity issue. it's a military issue. >> absolutely. >> this is a major concern. >> we need to talk. >> we also need to add hunger is still a problem for many children. children who are hungry don't eat well. they also don't learn well. we still have that problem. >> we'd love to have you both back. alexis glick and dr. david satcher, thank you so much for what you're doing. >> thank you, guys, for having us in. we really appreciate it. >> more information on the report from the genyouth foundation. logon to genyouth fofoundation..

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fidelity's guidance can help you fine-tune your personal economy. start today with a free one-on-one review of your retirement plan. do you guys see -- it was on showtime. r.j. cutler was here. ep of "nashville." i saw it this weekend. >> it's time for business before the bell with cnbc's brian sullivan. >> it was one of these things that i loved because i knew that every liberal that was watching it was just going crazy. going, he's the most evil man. i'm sitting there watching it

going, uh-huh. okay. yeah. i get it. okay. >> i think brian sullivan is sort of the dick cheney of business news. >> oh, my god. >> he is. he knows what he believes. he's going to charge straight ahead. and he's not going to apologize. >> he's a man of conviction. >> he is a man of conviction. cnbc's brian sullivan there. you know, there are fears there would be a run on the banks in cyprus this morning after european leaders added a tax on deposits to the bailout measure. has that run begun? and what impact will it have on u.s. markets? >> well, you know, listen. cyprus, small country. gdp basically less than exxon mobil's capital spending every year. population of dallas. but suddenly it is the focus of the financial world because of what you guys noted. basically the european union imposing a tax on all bank deposits in that country. today's a bank holiday. so if there's a run it hasn't begun yet. but imagine waking up and someone says, hey, doesn't matter how much you've got in the bank, we're going to tax it tomorrow because we need to bail

out the bondholders and the banks. you're like, wait a minute. that's just wrong. that's what's happened in cyprus. the fear for the global market is not cyprus. fear is that if the eu can do this on one nation, is it able to do it on another nation? maybe france. maybe germany. right? much bigger nations. so there's a big fear there. yes, there is talk about a potential bank run. bank holiday there today. they delayed the vote on this. the parliament of cyprus is supposed to vote on this. they delayed that. right? took the brave way out. the fear there is that we'll see a bank run across europe. i personally think it could be good for the united states. while we're going to see stocks probably drop at the open here, once people wake up and they say where's the safe haven for my money, they'll probably look to switzerland. they may look to london. they may look to new york. if they feel the german and french are cipriate banks this may be the place to be. maybe not a long-term negative for the united states. today, guys, certainly a lot of fear out there in the market. futures indicating a pretty good

drop at the open. >> thank you very much. >> i'm going to have to close my cyprus bank account. >> you might want to do that. all right. >> you going to close yours? >> yes. although i got a free toaster so i have to keep it open for another six weeks. >> the only thing i know about cyprus. cyprus hill. what is this? what are we listening to? oh, snap. what's wrong with me, man? >> the question is, will he be able to mend fences with prime minister netanyahu? that's next when "morning joe" returns. this is so sick! i can't believe your mom let you take her car out. this is awesome! whoooo! you're crazy.

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time for another look at the morning papers at 53 past the hour. before addressing a crowd of over 200,000 in st. peter's square, pope francis broke protocol and made an impromptu appearance at the side gate of the vatican where he shook hands with followers. pope francis then delivered a traditional prayer to the virgin mary which focused on mercy and forgiveness. he drew cheers by closing his remarks with the italian phrase for "have a good lunch."

>> all right. >> i think i'm liking him. >> president obama's going to begin his first presidential trip to israel this week. after a sometimes rocky relationship with prime minister benjamin netanyahu. as far as the middle east peace process goes, a new "washington post"/abc news poll shows that 69% of americans think the obama administration should not take a leading role in negotiations. 26% say take a leading role. mika, that is a poll sthat show americans want us to lead from behind. >> tomorrow we're going to take a special look at ten years of war in iraq. veteran journalist bob woodward and iraq veteran paul reickhoff will be with us. up next, what if anything did we learn today?

i'm meteorologist bill karins with your business travel forecast. a snowstorm coming for new engla england. a full-fledged all-day event on tuesday. especially the mountainous areas. we're talking about coastal cities not dealing with much. by the time the storm is all over with interior new england is going to have plenty of snow. in many locations, 6 to 12 inches. in the mountains, even more. with double miles you can actually use to fly any airline anytime. ♪ what are you doing? i'm saving one for later. my body keeps it warm. it's like a little hot dog steamer in there. go ahead, touch my chest. no. ♪ what's in your wallet? you got any mustard in there? ♪

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